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Posts in Political Science
The Politics of Assassination

May Contain Markup

By Murray Clark Havens, Carl Leiden & Karl M. Schmitt

Nature of Assassination: The book explores the definition, scope, andstate of knowledge on political assassinations, emphasizing their impact on political systems.

Case Studies: It includes detailed case studies of notable assassinations,such as Martin Luther King Jr., Henrik Verwoerd, and Patrice Lumumba,analyzing the assassins, conspiracies, and impacts.

Impact Analysis: The authors discuss the varying impacts of assassinations, from negligible to destructive, on political systems,personnel, and policies.

Research Challenges: The book highlights the difficulties in studying assassinations, including data collection and interpretation, and calls for further research in this area.

Prentice-Hall, 1970, 174 pages

COLOUR, RACE AND EMPIRE

by A. G. R U S S E L.L

● Focus on Race and Colour: The document explores the social and economic implications of racial differentiation, particularly within the British Colonial Empire, emphasizing the practical importance of these issues over physical differences.

● Historical Context: It discusses the historical development of racial issues, including the impact of European expansion and the Industrial Revolution on race relations.

● Colonial Exploitation: The text highlights the economic exploitation of colonies, particularly in Africa, and the profits made by European companies at the expense of native labor.

● Educational Challenges: The document addresses the educational disparities faced by colonized peoples and critiques the Western educational system for its failure to adequately serve these populations.

London. Gollancz. 1944. 273p.

THE NEGRO FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA

By W.D. Weatherford,

Addresses the complex issue of racial adjustment and is introduced by James H. Dillard. It explores the history and progress of Black people from Africa to America, highlighting the struggles and achievements in the face of adversity. The author emphasizes the importance of mutual understanding and trust between races to overcome racial antipathy and achieve social justice. Historical Context: The book provides a detailed account of the African background, the impact of slavery, and the ongoing challenges faced by Black people in America.

NEGRO UNIVERSITIES PRESS. NEW YORK. 1924. 483p.

THE NEGRO AROUND THE WORLD

By Willard Price

THE BLACK GIRDLE. If an inhabitant of Mars could see the Earth according to the color of its peoples, he could observe a broad black sash about the World's waist. The belt of black, within which most of the 140,000,000 black people of the globe live, follows the equator and spreads about twenty degrees to the north and the same distance south. It is not quite broad enough to take in the United States ith its 11,000,000 Negroesbut all the other important groupings of blacks in the world are within this tropical belt. It includes the 11,000,000 Negroes of Central and South America and the 10,000,000 of the West Indies. Most of the 100,000,000 Negroes of Africa are found within these limits….

NY. George H. Doran Co. 1925. 69p.

RACE AND SOCIETY

Kenneth Little

● This book emphasizes that history and social context are more influential than biological race in shaping cultural differences and racial attitudes. Racial prejudice is not innate but learned through socialization, often during early childhood.

● Global Examples: The book provides case studies from various countries, including South Africa, Brazil, Hawaii, and the United States, to illustrate different racial dynamics and policies.

● References: The document includes numerous references to works by various authors on race and society, providing a comprehensive bibliography for further reading.

UNESCO. 1958. 54Pp.

Election Policy Fundamentals: The Secret Ballot [July 5, 2024]

SHANTON, KAREN L.; WOLANIN, TYLER L.

From the document: "Provisions for a secret ballot appear in all states' laws or constitutions [hyperlink]. Consensus that the ballot should be secret--that voters should not be able to be linked to their selections--is a somewhat recent development in American history. How to preserve ballot secrecy and balance it against other election objectives like promoting transparency, protecting against fraud, and ensuring accessibility for all eligible voters is also an ongoing issue, featuring in current election policy debates."

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE. 5 JUL, 2024 4p.

Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order in Early Modern England

Edited by Paul Slack

Recurring Themes: The document explores popular protest and rebellion in early modern England, focusing on social, economic, and cultural changes.

Historical Analysis: It includes reappraisals of significant rebellions like the Pilgrimage of Grace and Kett's Rebellion, highlighting local grievances and loyalties.

Youth Involvement: The role of youth groups and apprentices in protests and their impact on political and social movements is examined.

Elite Influence: The document discusses the interaction between elite and popular attitudes, noting how political disputes and elite involvement influenced rebellions.

Cambridge University Press, 1984, 339 pages

What is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism

By Arun Kundnani

Liberals have been arguing for nearly a century that racism is fundamentally an individual problem of extremist beliefs. Responding to Nazism, thinkers like gay rights pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld and anthropologist Ruth Benedict called for teaching people, especially poor people, to be less prejudiced. Here lies the origin of today 39 liberal antiracism, from diversity training to Hollywood activism. Meanwhile, a more radical antiracism flowered in the Third World. Anticolonial revolutionaries traced racism to the broad economic and political structures of modernity. Thinkers like C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, and Frantz Fanon showed how racism was connected to colonialism and capitalism, a perspective adopted even by Martin Luther King.Today, liberal antiracism has proven powerless against structural oppression. As Arun Kundnani demonstrates, white liberals can heroically confront their own whiteness all they want, yet these structures remain.This deeply researched and swift-moving narrative history tells the story of the two antiracisms and their fates. As neoliberalism reordered the world in the last decades of the twentieth century, the case became clear: fighting racism means striking at its capitalist roots

London: Verso, 2023. 304p.

Building a Whole-of-Government Strategy to Address Extreme Heat

WICKERSON, GRACE; BURTON, AUTUMN

The passage that follows includes several links embedded in the original text. From the document: "From August 2023 to March 2024, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) talked with +'85 experts' to source '20 high-demand opportunity areas for ready policy innovation' and '65 policy ideas.' In response, FAS recruited '33 authors to work on +18 policy memos' through our 'Extreme Heat Policy Sprint' from January 2024 to April 2024, 'generating an additional +100 policy recommendations' to address extreme heat. Our experts' full recommendations will be published in April 2024; this report previews key findings. In total, FAS has collected '+165 recommendations for 34 offices and/or agencies.' Key opportunity areas are described below and link out to a set of featured recommendations. The accompanying spreadsheet includes the '165 policy ideas' developed through expert engagement. [...] America is rapidly barreling towards its next hottest summer on record. While we still lack national strategy, states, counties, and cities around the country have taken up the charge of addressing extreme heat in their communities and are experimenting on the fly. [...] While state and local governments can make significant advances, national extreme heat resilience requires a 'whole of government' federal approach, as it intersects health, energy, housing, homeland and national security, international relations, and many more policy domains. The federal government plays a critical role in scaling up heat resilience interventions through research and development, regulations, standards, guidance, funding sources, and other policy levers. 'But what are the transformational policy opportunities for action?'"

FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS. JUN, 2024. 34p.

2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat

UNITED STATES. CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY; UNITED STATES. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION;

From the document: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) prepared this overview to help partners defend against insider threat concerns that could materialize during the 2024 election cycle. For years, federal, state, local, and private sector partners nationwide have worked closely together to support state and local officials in safeguarding election infrastructure from cyber, physical, and insider threats. Because of these efforts, there is no evidence that malicious actors changed, altered, or deleted votes or had any impact on the outcome of elections. Over the past several years, the election infrastructure community has experienced multiple instances of election system access control compromises conducted by insider threats. While there is no evidence that malicious actors impacted election outcomes, it is important that election stakeholders at all levels are aware of the risks posed by insider threats and the steps that they can take to identify and mitigate these threats. This document outlines several recent examples of election security-related insider threats, discusses potential scenarios that could arise during the 2024 election cycle, and provides recommendations for how to mitigate the risk posed by insider threats."

UNITED STATES. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION; UNITED STATES. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. 2024. 9p.

Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine

By Elia Zureik, David Lyon and Yasmeen Abu-Laban

This book titled “Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine”edited by Elia Zureik, David Lyon, and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, explores the various layers of surveillance used to control the Palestinian population in Israel and the Occupied Territories. It examines how surveillance operates, its effectiveness, and how it is used for population control.Topics covered include social sorting, spatial control, technology, state securitization ,and the influence of global considerations. The book is written in a clear and accessible style and is aimed at scholars and students of sociology, political science, international relations, surveillance studies, and Middle East studies.

Taylor & Francis, 2010, 392 pages

Pro-Palestine US Student Protests Nearly Triple in April

HO, BIANCA; DOYLE, KIERAN

From the document: "Pro-Palestine demonstrations involving students in the United States have nearly tripled from 1 to 26 April compared with all of March, ACLED [ [Armed Conflict Location and Event Data]] data show [...]. New York has been one of the main student protest battlegrounds since the Israel-Palestine conflict flared up in and around Gaza last October, and the arrest of more than 100 students at Columbia University in New York around 18 April heralded a new wave of campus demonstrations."

ARMED CONFLICT LOCATION & EVENT DATA PROJECT. 2 MAY, 2024. 5p.

Overview of the Impact of GenAI and Deepfakes on Global Electoral Processes

CERVINI, ENZO MARIA LE FEVRE; CARRO, MARÍA VICTORIA

From the document: "Generative Artificial Intelligence's (GenAI) capacity to produce highly realistic images, videos, and text poses a significant challenge, as it can deceive viewers and consumers into accepting artificially generated content as authentic and genuine. This raises concerns about the dissemination of false information, disinformation, and its implications for public trust and democratic processes. Additionally, this phenomenon prompts critical ethical and legal inquiries, including issues surrounding the attribution of authority and accountability for the generated content. [...] This article delves into the impact of generative AI on recent and future political elections. We'll examine how deepfakes and other AI-generated content are used, along with their potential to sway voters. We'll also analyze the strategies various stakeholders are deploying to counter this growing phenomenon."

ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES. 22 MAR, 2024. 44p.

Overdose prevention centres, safe consumption sites, and drug consumption rooms: a rapid evidence review

By Gillian Shorter, Phoebe McKenna-Plumley, Kerry Campbell, Jolie Keemink, and Benjamin Scher, et al.

Overdose prevention centres can also be referred to as drug consumption rooms, safe consumption/injecting/smoking sites, and/or other relevant names. These names can reflect legal distinctions e.g. in Canada, which relate to permanency or function of the site. There are currently over 200 OPCs worldwide in 17 countries, primarily in urban areas, and they cater to a range of drug types and visitor numbers.

Overdose prevention centres can be integrated facilities with other services, specialised sites which are primarily an OPC with limited other services, mobile sites, or tent/other temporary sites. Collaboration and consultation before and after a service opens is central to successful OPCs. Potential and actual OPC users should be consulted on the design of and running of sites to support their use. Collaboration and consultation involving members of the local community, businesses, police, elected representatives, public health, or other local authority staff with OPC staff and operators can smooth over any issues before and after a service opens. Belfast, Queen's University, 2023. 188p.

pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/530629435/DS_OPC_Report_V4.pdf

Russia and the Far-Right: Insights From Ten European Countries

edited by Kacper Rekawek, Thomas Renard and Bàrbara Molas

Russia’s influence over far-right/ racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) milieus in Europe is multi-faceted and complex. It involves direct activities, such as financing or political support, as well as indirect activities, such as disinformation campaigns. In some cases, Russia was associated, albeit remotely, with some far-right violent incidents in Europe, including the alleged coup attempt by the sovereign movement Reichsburger, in Germany. Recognising the increasingly confrontational policy of Russia vis-à-vis Europe, and the growing threat from far-right extremism in Europe, this book thoroughly and systematically reviews Russia’s relationship with diverse far-right actors in ten European countries over the past decade. The countries covered in this book include Austria, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden. The chapters are authored by some of the world’s most authoritative experts on extremism and Russian influence.

Overall, this edited volume is the first such comprehensive attempt at mapping the scope and depth of Russian influence over far-right extremism in Europe, resulting in the identification of key patterns of influence and offering some possible recommendations to counter it. This book is both a leading scholarly work, as well as a wake-up call and guide for action for European policy-makers.

Dangerous or Endangered? Race and the Politics of Youth in Urban America

by Jennifer Tilton

How do you tell the difference between a “good kid” and a “potential thug”? In Dangerous or Endangered?, Jennifer Tilton considers the ways in which children are increasingly viewed as dangerous and yet, simultaneously, as endangered and in need of protection by the state.
Tilton draws on three years of ethnographic research in Oakland, California, one of the nation’s most racially diverse cities, to examine how debates over the nature and needs of young people have fundamentally reshaped politics, transforming ideas of citizenship and the state in contemporary America. As parents and neighborhood activists have worked to save and discipline young people, they have often inadvertently reinforced privatized models of childhood and urban space, clearing the streets of children, who are encouraged to stay at home or in supervised after-school programs. Youth activists protest these attempts, demanding a right to the city and expanded rights of citizenship.
Dangerous or Endangered? pays careful attention to the intricate connections between fears of other people’s kids and fears for our own kids in order to explore the complex racial, class, and gender divides in contemporary American cities.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2010; 203p.

Critical Race Narratives: A Study of Race, Rhetoric and Injury

By Carl Gutierrez-Jones

The beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo, and the LAPD Rampart Scandal: these events have been interpreted by the courts, the media and the public in dramatically conflicting ways. Critical Race Narratives examines what is at stake in these conflicts and, in so doing, rethinks racial strife in the United States as a highly-charged struggle over different methods of reading and writing. Focusing in particular on the practice and theorization of narrative strategies, Gutiérrez-Jones engages many of the most influential texts in the recent race debates including The Bell Curve, America in Black and White, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Mismeasure of Man. In the process, Critical Race Narratives pursues key questions posed by the texts as they work within, or against, disciplinary expectations: can critical engagements with narrative enable a more democratic dialogue regarding race? what promise does such experimentation hold for working through the traumatic legacy of racism in the United States? Throughout, Critical Race Narratives initiates a timely dialogue between race-focused narrative experiment in scholarly writing and similar work in literary texts and popular culture.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2001.

Black Rage Confronts the Law

By Paul Harris

In 1971, Paul Harris pioneered the modern version of the black rage defense when he successfully defended a young black man charged with armed bank robbery. Dubbed one of the most novel criminal defenses in American history by Vanity Fair, the black rage defense is enormously controversial, frequently dismissed as irresponsible, nothing less than a harbinger of anarchy. Consider the firestorm of protest that resulted when the defense for Colin Ferguson, the gunman who murdered numerous passengers on a New York commuter train, claimed it was considering a black rage defense.

In this thought-provoking book, Harris traces the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, recreating numerous dramatic trials along the way. For example, he recounts in vivid detail how Clarence Darrow, defense attorney in the famous Scopes Monkey trial, first introduced the notion of an environmental hardship defense in 1925 while defending a black family who shot into a drunken white mob that had encircled their home.

Emphasizing that the black rage defense must be enlisted responsibly and selectively, Harris skillfully distinguishes between applying an environmental defense and simply blaming society, in the abstract, for individual crimes. If Ferguson had invoked such a defense, in Harris's words, it would have sent a superficial, wrong-headed, blame-everything-on-racism message. Careful not to succumb to easy generalizations, Harris also addresses the possibilities of a white rage defense and the more recent phenomenon of cultural defenses. He illustrates how a person's environment can, and does, affect his or her life and actions, how even the most rational person can become criminally deranged, when bludgeoned into hopelessness by exploitation, racism, and relentless poverty.

New York; London: NYU Press, 1996. 306p.

Extremism – Do We Need a Definition?

By Ghaffar Hussain

Each society needs to clearly define what it considers unacceptable if it wishes to stay functional. 

  • We must tackle extremism in a way that preserves civil liberties.

  • A definition must be technical and workable and term ‘extremism’ must not become a mere adjective. 

  • A definition of extremism must focus on themes that undermine its core ethos of a society, which in the anglosphere context are intolerance, violence and hatred.

    Washington, DC: George Washington University Program on Extremism. 2024, 10pg